Children of the Blitz

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2026

Documentary
History

Summary

The stories of some of the two million British children who were not evacuated during the Second World War, staying at home in towns and cities at risk of being bombed, often to help their families or because their parents couldn't bear to send them away. This documentary features some of the last people who were witness to the reality of the Blitz, with their testimonies offering an intimate, enlightening and moving portrait of wartime Britain through children's eyes

Review

David Butcher

“You carry the consequences with you for ever,” says Gill, remembering the intense bombing of Coventry when she was a child. She is one of a dozen or so interviewees gathered here to explain what it was like in 1940 to be in British towns and cities while they were devastated by the Luftwaffe.

The cumulative effect of the stories is knotty and powerful. We get a sense of how resilient they must have been as children, but also of how the fear and shock they endured – and often kept shtum about – coloured their later lives. Several are still visibly moved today, describing in great detail the horrors they witnessed or people they lost.

Jean from Sheffield recalls losing her mother in a raid and then being left by her father. Monica from Croydon remembers two of her best friends being killed and how it brought home to her that the war was not a game. Ernie from Liverpool remembers the erasure of whole streets and neighbourhoods: “It was the end of our community. It was my life – my childhood had gone.”

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rolenameDirectorJack WarrenderProducerGeorge GraftonEditorAnna PriceExecutive producerMorgan MatthewsExecutive producerSophie Jones

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News & features about Children of the Blitz

The children who lived through the Blitz have a powerful message for us

The children who lived through the Blitz have a powerful message for us, says the director